Og spent a great deal of time in knocking stones together, for he had a real object. He was determined to find out how to get the fire from the black rock in a form that would make it of service to him as a protector and to furnish him light and heat and cook his food. Og thought longingly of the fire-scorched horse that he had first eaten and he was determined, if it were possible, to once again eat cooked meat.
For that reason he spent days at a time working with the piece of flint rock that gave off the sparks each time he struck it against another stone. He tried every way he could think of to catch the fire, but not once was his patient effort rewarded with even the tiniest spiral of smoke. Still he kept at his work with determination. Time and again he held sticks against the black stone and watched the results eagerly. He struck the stone against the stick for hours at a time until he wore out the stick, yet the result was always the same. When he struck stone against stone he always got sparks, yet neither stone would catch fire. Og worked and worried and fretted and tired his brain out trying to accomplish the thing he desired.
He had set himself up a veritable workshop there in the canyon, under the shelter of some big bowlders. There he kept his precious tiger skin, and the claws and teeth, and there he kept choice pieces of wood that he hoped some day to make into torches, his hammers—for he had made several now that he had found an interest in making things—his stone knives, for he had wrought several of these with patient chipping, and numerous pieces of flint that he had gathered up about the canyon. Always he sat on a smooth flat rock to work at his stone chipping, and beneath this rock was a litter of stone chips and, most conspicuous of all, a pile of splintered wood, some of it ground almost to powder as a result of his almost incessant beating of flint against wood and wood against flint in his vain hope of transferring the sparks from the stone to a torch.
Of course Og did not realize it, but this litter of powdery splinters of wood was the key to the solution of his problem, and doubtless he would have gone on with his patient experimenting for days, with his fire material close at hand, had it not been for a fortunate accident. The hairy boy found a new piece of the black fire rock, a large piece, twice as big as his head, and he had carried it from a remote corner of the canyon back to his workshop beside the flat stone. Here he dropped it on the ground and surveyed it reflectively. It was much too large to do anything with and he realized that pieces of it could be more easily handled. He decided to break it into fragments and forthwith he smote it a terrific blow with his stone hammer.
A perfect shower of sparks and a ruined stone hammer rewarded him, for the flint was a terrifically hard smoothgrained piece and not easily broken. Og looked at the shattered hammer-head ruefully, and then at the flint. Then he gave a sharp cry of astonishment, for, behold, from the pile of litter, from the powdered wood splinters, a tiny spiral of smoke curled up, while a spark glowed before his eyes.
For a moment Og did not know just what to do. Suddenly he recalled that this fire thing was a peculiar animal that could be both killed and brought to life by breathing on it. But before he could put this thought into action the wisp of smoke went out, and the glowing spark became black. In vain did he try to nurse it back to life. It was gone.
Og’s disappointment was overwhelming for a little while. He just crouched there in dejection, looking at the pile of splinters and wood dust. But presently he aroused himself and began to ponder the matter. He ran his fingers through the wood dust and realized that it was soft and pulpy. He remembered, too, how much more readily soft wood had burned in his first fire, and he wondered whether that was not the solution of the whole problem.
He let the great piece of flint lie where it was and, finding a heavy stone that he could conveniently handle, he crashed it down upon the fire rock with as much force as he had used when he had shattered his stone hammer. Once more there was a shower of sparks and once more a tiny spiral of smoke began to rise from the litter of wood dust. Og was quickly on his knees this time breathing on the glowing spark. And, as he blew against it softly, he saw it increase in size and grow brighter and the smoke wisp grow larger and larger.
Suddenly, with a tiny explosive sound, the live coal leaped into a flame and Og, with a cry of elation, hastily began to feed it wood splinters until presently his whole heap of litter was alive and burning and a smoke column was rising skyward. That night was the first since the beginning of time that a camp fire glowed in the canyon, and the tree people from the safety of the tall palm trees watched it with a sense of fear, for to them it seemed like the eye of another giant, more formidable even than the cave tiger, looking at them through the blackness.